Sizewell C nuclear project no longer viable, with new developments in cheaper wind power- energy expert
Nuclear power has become “outdated by technology” and offshore wind can
produce power more quickly and cheaply, an energy scientist told the BBC.
Professor in energy and climate change Charlie Wilson said there was no
longer a good case for a new £20bn Sizewell C plant on the Suffolk coast.
He said new ways to store wind turbine energy meant supplies could be
maintained even in low winds.
EDF, the firm behind Sizewell C, said nuclearwas key for UK energy needs.
The government said nuclear was vital for the
“UK’s low-carbon energy future”. Prof Wilson, of the the Norwich-based
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East
Anglia, said nuclear power cost twice as much as wind power. Electricity
generated by wind turbines costs about £40 per megawatt hour, compared to
£92.50 which is the projected cost of the latest nuclear plant being built
at Hinkley Point C in Somerset, he added.
He said in the past nuclear power
was seen as key because in any weather it provides the same baseload power
– baseload refers to the minimum amount of electric power needed to be
supplied to the electrical grid at any given time. “The view in the
1970s-1990s was that you needed this large firm baseload power generation
like nuclear,” he said.
“The game-changing technologies around storage and
flexibility mean intermittent renewables – like large offshore wind farms –
are now viable as a reliable generation source.
BBC 25th Sept 2021
A site once earmarked for nuclear power will now assemble wind turbines
A site once earmarked for nuclear power will now assemble wind turbines, WHYY, This story originally appeared on NJ Spotlight. Tom Johnson, NJ Spotlight, 15 Sept 21,
The New Jersey Economic Development Authority and PSEG have signed a longtime lease on land that is planned to become home to the New Jersey Wind Port — a step enhancing the state’s goal of becoming the hub of a burgeoning offshore wind industry.
The site, located on an artificial island in Lower Alloways Creek in Salem County next to three PSEG nuclear plants, is viewed by the administration of Gov. Phil Murphy as an almost ideal location to serve the supply needs of an offshore wind sector that’s expected to take root up and down the Eastern seaboard.
With an expansive footprint alongside Delaware Bay, lack of height restrictions, and easy access to the Atlantic Ocean’s wind farm lease areas, the Wind Port is one of a few select spots on the East Coast that can accommodate the marshalling, assembly and shipping of the huge turbines used to generate offshore wind power. Hundreds of feet tall, offshore wind turbines cannot fit beneath bridges, power lines and other naturally occurring barriers.
For PSEG, the lease agreement also should prove to be lucrative. The site was once viewed as the location for a fourth nuclear unit. But the company abandoned that concept when it appeared economically unsound. Now it’s looking to use the land to help secure its foothold in the emerging offshore wind industry. PSEG already has a 25% stake in the state’s first offshore wind farm, a 1,100-megawatt facility off Atlantic City to be built by Ørsted……….
“The New Jersey Wind Port is a transformational investment that will create hundreds of good jobs and drive billions of dollars of economic activity in South Jersey and throughout the state,” said EDA Chief Executive Officer Tim Sullivan.
PSEG Chief Operating Officer Ralph LaRossa agreed. “Alongside PSEG nuclear plants, the New Jersey Wind Port will establish South Jersey as the heart of New Jersey economy,’’ he said. “By supporting the development of renewable energy and offshore wind power, this lease will establish New Jersey as the destination for clean energy development, operations, training, skills and innovation.’’
New Jersey has approved three wind projects, including two by Ørsted, one of the largest offshore wind developers, and another by New Shell Ventures and EDF Renewables — all in the Atlantic Ocean. The Murphy administration wants to develop 7,500 megawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2035.
Along the East Coast, offshore investment through 2035 is anticipated to exceed $150 billion, according to the EDA.
The first rule of real estate and offshore wind is location, location, and location,’’ said Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey. “The New Jersey Wind Port is uniquely positioned to jump start the state’s offshore wind industry and offshore wind in the region.’’ https://whyy.org/articles/a-site-once-earmarked-for-nuclear-power-will-now-assemble-wind-turbines/
Energy Markets Bet Against Nuclear As Election Nears In Japan
Energy Markets Bet Against Nuclear As Election Nears In Japan, Oil Price, By Haley Zaremba – Sep 08, 2021 Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga shocked the world on Friday when he announced that he will be stepping down and declining to seek re-election after serving one term. ………
one candidate has emerged as a major frontrunner. ….. Taro Kono served as the minister in charge of battling Covid-19 in Japan. It is looking likely that Kono will garner the support of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), whose majority in the Japanese parliament ensures that any candidate who heads the party will ultimately win the race for Prime Minister. Kono emerged as the clear frontrunner in Japanese media polls over the weekend that asked respondents to indicate their preferred leader.
It remains to be seen whether Taro Kono will take the helm of Japan, but if he sticks to his guns, the Japanese nuclear energy sector could soon recede into the rearview.
In addition to being known for his role in combating the novel coronavirus pandemic, Kono is also a noted anti-nuclear advocate with a long history of outspoken dissent about the nuclear energy that currently represents a fifth of Japan’s energy mix. Due to this history, the news of Kono’s ascent toward the Prime Minister position on Monday has already sent shockwaves through Japan’s energy markets.
So far, renewable energy markets are winning big. “Frenzied buying from retail traders sent Japan’s renewable energy stocks soaring Monday,” in response to Kono’s emergence as a top contender according to reporting from Bloomberg. Solar and biomass power company Renova Inc. saw its stock increase by 15% while solar firm West Holdings Co. hit an all-time high after its stocks jumped 9%. These gains came at a cost to nuclear energy firms and power companies, and Kansai Electric Power Co. stocks notably dropped 2.7%.
Although the markets have already spoken, it remains to be seen whether Kono will stick to his staunchly anti-nuclear stance if he enters office as Prime Minister. “Whether he will actually reflect his previous stance into his policies once the race for the prime minister position begins is a different story,” Norihiro Fujito, chief investment strategist at Tokyo’s Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co. was quoted by Bloomberg. “The market is just getting ahead of itself.”
…….. Currently, the national plan “calls for renewable sources to provide between 22% and 24% of Japan’s electricity by 2030, and for nuclear energy to provide between 20% and 22%.” But nuclear energy is a hard sell in Japan, a country that is still recovering from the devastating 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster
Just this week, a full decade after the tragedy caused by an earthquake and ensuing tsunami, the International Atomic Energy Agency is reaching out to Japan to work alongside them in their continuing struggles to manage the radioactive waste still piling up after the 2011 accident. Japan has continued to use more than a million tonnes of water to cool the damaged reactors and prevent a meltdown, and now they’re running out of storage space for the radioactive waste water. Their plan? Dump it into the Pacific Ocean.
The continued complications and hazardous aftereffects of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima throw the dark side of nuclear into stark relief for the Japanese public. ……… It remains to be seen whether Taro Kono will take the helm of Japan, but if he sticks to his guns, the Japanese nuclear energy sector could soon recede into the rearview. https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Energy-Markets-Bet-Against-Nuclear-As-Election-Nears-In-Japan.html
A Just Recovery Renewable Energy Plan for Africa
Friends of the Earth Africa today launched ‘A Just Recovery Renewable Energy Plan for Africa’ which offers a practical and much-needed opportunity to change the trajectory of energy development, distribution, and access on the African continent.
The report stresses the urgency to democratise energy systems, reduce the power of transnational corporations and enable peoples and communities to access sufficient energy to live a dignified life. The report which was launched during a webinar with key climate justice voices demands a complete shift from current dirty energy systems to achieve 100% Renewable Energy in Africa.
The plan found that it is technically and financially feasible, with an annual investment requirement of around US$130 billion per year. It lays out clear targets for this vision, with over 300GW of new renewable energy by 2030, as agreed
by the African Union, and over 2000GW by 2050. It also shows that the finance and investment needed to achieve the 100% renewable energy goal can be done through public finance from the global North, ending tax dodging and dropping the debt.
All Africa 2nd Sept 2021
In China, wind and solar energy are the clear winners over nuclear.
A Decade Of Wind, Solar, & Nuclear In China Shows Clear Scalability Winners
China’s natural experiment in deploying low-carbon energy generation shows that wind and solar are the clear winners. https://cleantechnica.com/2021/09/05/a-decade-of-wind-solar-nuclear-in-china-shows-clear-scalability-winners/ By Michael Barnard, 6 Sept 21,
My 2014 thesis continues to be supported by the natural experiment being played out in China. In my recent published assessment of small modular nuclear reactors (tl’dr: bad idea, not going to work), it became clear to me that China has fallen into one of the many failure conditions of rapid deployment of nuclear, which is to say an expanding set of technologies instead of a standardized single technology, something that is one of the many reasons why SMRs won’t be deployed in any great numbers.
Wind and solar are going to be the primary providers of low-carbon energy for the coming century, and as we electrify everything, the electrons will be coming mostly from the wind and sun, in an efficient, effective and low-cost energy model that doesn’t pollute or cause global warming. Good news indeed that these technologies are so clearly delivering on their promise to help us deal with the climate crisis.
 |
In 2014, I made the strong assertion that China’s track record on wind and nuclear generation deployments showed clearly that wind energy was more scalable. In 2019, I returned to the subject, and assessed wind, solar and nuclear total TWh of generation, asserting that wind and solar were outperforming nuclear substantially in total annual generation, and projected that the two renewable forms of generation would be producing 4 times the total TWh of nuclear by 2030 each year between them. Mea culpa: in the 2019 assessment, I overstated the experienced capacity factor for wind generation in China, which still lags US experiences, but has improved substantially in the past few years.
My thesis on scalability of deployment has remained unchanged: the massive numerical economies of scale for manufacturing and distributing wind and solar components, combined with the massive parallelization of construction that is possible with those technologies, will always make them faster and easier to scale in capacity and generation than the megaprojects of GW-scale nuclear plants. This was obvious in 2014, it was obviously true in 2019, and it remains clearly demonstrable today. Further, my point was that China was the perfect natural experiment for this assessment, as it was treating both deployments as national strategies (an absolute condition of success for nuclear) and had the ability and will to override local regulations and any NIMBYism. No other country could be used to easily assess which technologies could be deployed more quickly.
In March of this year I was giving the WWEA USA+Canada wind energy update as part of WWEA’s regular round-the-world presentation by industry analysts in the different geographies. My report was unsurprising. In 2020’s update, the focus had been on what the impact of COVID-19 would be on wind deployments around the world. My update focused on the much greater focus on the force majeure portions of wind construction contracts, and I expected that Canada and the USA would miss expectations substantially. The story was much the same in other geographies. And that was true for Canada, the USA and most of the rest of the geographies.
But China surprised the world in 2020, deploying not only 72 GW of wind energy, vastly more than expected, but also 48 GW of solar capacity. The wind deployment was a Chinese and global record for a single country, and the solar deployment was over 50% more than the previous year. Meanwhile, exactly zero nuclear reactors were commissioned in 2020.
And so, I return to my analysis of Chinese low-carbon energy deployment, looking at installed capacity and annual added extra generation.
German utility aims to expand renewables, rejects keeping nuclear reactors open
RWE CEO rejects keeping nuclear power plants open, Reuters DUESSELDORF, Aug 24 – German utility RWE (RWEG.DE) rejected on Tuesday the idea of letting nuclear power plants stay open for longer due to the fact they produce less carbon dioxide.
“We are not available for this,” CEO Markus Krebber told journalists. The German government is paying four nuclear operators – including RWE – nearly 2.6 billion euros ($3.05 billion) in compensation for forcing them to shut their nuclear plants early in response to the Fukushima disaster.
RWE, which used to rely heavily on nuclear power and coal, has transformed itself into one of the largest green power companies in Europe.
Krebber called for a new federal government to accelerate the pace of the shift to renewable energy by increasing targets, expanding the grid and cutting the approval procedures for wind energy plants.
Krebber, who took over as CEO at the end of April, will present his strategy in the fourth quarter, including a new dividend policy: “We are no longer a dividend stock. We are a growth stock,” he said. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/rwe-ceo-rejects-keeping-nuclear-power-plants-open-2021-08-24/
Renewables are beating nuclear
It’s Not a Competition, But Renewables Are Beating Nuclear Anyway, Bloomberg Green By Nathaniel Bullard19 August 2021, Energy giant BP Plc has been publishing its annual review of global energy statistics for seven decades. (I’ve been reading it — and digesting its data — for about a fifth of that time.)
The latest edition published in July is, understandably, quite focused on the largest year-on-year decline in primary energy consumption since 1945. But there’s another finding worth noting: 2020 was the first year in which renewable power generation (excluding hydro) surpassed nuclear power generation.
……..with nuclear generation basically flat since the turn of the century and renewables continuing to grow, the latter caught the former in 2020.
[on original – graph showing dramatic rise in renewable energy, uneven output of nuclear] Compare the shape of the renewables curve to nuclear’s. The perfectly smooth renewables curve is an aggregate of hundreds of geothermal plants, thousands of biomass turbines, a-third-of-a-million wind turbines, and more than a billion photovoltaic modules, installed across numerous global markets. It shows not a single annual decline in more than 50 years.
Nuclear is basically the opposite: a single technology with a small number of plants in an even smaller number of markets. Many discrete decisions — whether to embark on a massive expansion in one market, say, or to shut down generation for years in the wake of disaster — are visible in this chart. There, in 2011, is the Japanese nuclear fleet response to the Tōhoku earthquake and ensuing tsunami. And we don’t need to squint to see the shutdown of six plants last year in the U.S, Sweden, Russia, and France.
This is what the nuclear fleet’s growth trajectory looks like, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency: basically flat in the 21st century, with only four more plants operational now than in 2001.
Nuclear plants are also pretty old. Most were designed for a 40-year useful life, and a lot of them are approaching that age now—a full 45% are between the ages of 31 and 40. There are more nuclear plants older than 46 than there are those under 6.
………. It takes years, sometimes a decade or more, to bring a nuclear plant into full operation, which means that there’s a significant lag between when construction starts and when the finished facility is connected to the grid. New nuclear construction in the U.S. is also running over schedule and over budget, for many reasons………. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-19/it-s-not-a-competition-but-renewables-are-beating-nuclear-anyway
An expert explains that the Philippines’ nuclear power plant would be OK, but solar power would be faster and better.
Instead of nuclear power, why not solar power? https://opinion.inquirer.net/143165/instead-of-nuclear-power-why-not-solar-power Philippine Daily Inquirer August 17, 2021, Last July 8, Peter Wallace wrote in his column about nuclear power plants being safe and that there are many countries operating their nuclear power plants safely over the last 50 years: the United States, Germany, Taiwan, Japan. etc.
I agree about recommissioning the Bataan nuclear plant. As a chemical engineer, I can say that we have enough controls to operate it safely.
However, reviving the Bataan plant will take at least five years. Why not recommend the use of solar panels instead, per Republic Act No. 11285 or the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act, which requires building owners to use renewable sources like solar? The Philippines is the only country in the world with 2,000 hours of sun per year.
Germany went on to use solar panel systems on roofs and, in a short period of time, four million houses have been generating power, resulting in the shutdown of many coal plants. In the United States, New York appointed an energy czar to speed up the use of renewable energy.
Australia gives incentives to households that use solar batteries. lberdrola Spain has made tremendous progress on the use of renewable energy, becoming one of the top five electric utility companies in the world. Portugal and Spain have invested in photovoltaic battery storage systems.
Comparing the costs of nuclear and solar power
Solar challenging nuclear as potential climate change solution https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/08/09/solar-challenging-nuclear-as-potential-climate-change-solution/
Research suggests that we can power 80% of the United States with wind, solar, and 12 hours of energy storage, but the replacement of nuclear power plants hasn’t been financially viable. Is that about to change?AUGUST 9, 2021 JOHN FITZGERALD WEAVER Nuclear power delivers almost 20% of all electricity in the United States, and about 50% [ if you don’t count the uranium-nuclear fuel chain] of all low-emission electricity. Moreover, the United States has almost 100 nuclear power units operating more than 90% of the time, providing a steady base of power generation.
But moving forward, it seems nuclear has lost its swagger. Price increases, project delays, and cancellations have caused what may prove to be generational damage to nuclear power’s reputation. pv magazine USA has previously reported on industry pricing models, showing nuclear’s lagging pricing.
Now, Georgia Power’s Vogtle Unit 3 and Unit 4 – the nation’s only nuclear generating units currently under construction – have announced further delays and price increases. Conservative cost estimates suggest the two 1.117 GW facilities will require at least $30 billion to complete, including $3 billion in finance costs and $27 billion in construction costs.
Solar+storage costs
As solar and energy storage professionals, we must be conscious of the limitations of the sun, and the cost of energy storage. As we all know, the sun also sets. And while research suggests we can power 80% of the U.S. with wind, solar, and 12 hours of energy storage, being able to replace a nuclear power plant that runs 24/7/365 in wind, rain, snow, and sleet simply hasn’t been financially viable.
But is it today?
The chart above [ on original] shows the price of solar panels from 1976 through the end of 2019. Here, we see prices fall by more than 99.8% from over $100 per watt down to nearly $0.20 per watt. Below, we see the price of battery packs starting in 2010 and ending in 2020, based on data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Here, we see costs fall from $1,191/kWh to $137/kWh – a price decrease of greater than 88%.
In both cases, we can expect prices to continue trending downward in both the middle and long term. And so, what can we expect to pay when we replace a nuclear power plant with solar power plus batteries?
Cash to spend
The chart above [ on original] shows the price of solar panels from 1976 through the end of 2019. Here, we see prices fall by more than 99.8% from over $100 per watt down to nearly $0.20 per watt. Below, we see the price of battery packs starting in 2010 and ending in 2020, based on data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Here, we see costs fall from $1,191/kWh to $137/kWh – a price decrease of greater than 88%.
In both cases, we can expect prices to continue trending downward in both the middle and long term. And so, what can we expect to pay when we replace a nuclear power plant with solar power plus batteries?
Cash to spend
In order to replace the two nuclear plants while the sun is down, the batteries would need to replicate two 1.117 GW power sources for 16 hours. The total energy storage capacity would be 39.3 GWh, after we add an extra 10% for safe measure.
Roughly speaking, the total cost of these solar+storage facilities would be:
- $8.4 billion for 10.55 GWdc of solar power, fully installed at $0.80/watt
- $527 million for hypothetical power grid upgrades at $0.05/watt
- $7.8 billion for 39.3 GWh of energy storage fully installed at $200/kWh
- Around $16.8 billion grand total, no incentives
So, Georgia, pv magazine USA just saved you more than $13 billion (as of today, anyway).
Some caveats
It’s almost certain that a solar facility of this magnitude – roughly 27,000 acres, or around 0.07% of Georgia’s land – would be split among many landowners in the state. If land lease rates in Georgia are comparable to what might be earned in Pennsylvania, the project could provide as much as $27 million per year in income to Georgia landowners for decades to come.
Furthermore, the solar power plants would start generating electricity and revenue within about three years of the first signature, and two years after groundbreaking. The new Vogtle reactors began construction in 2013 (planning began much earlier), and are projected to complete in 2022-23.
With these considerations in mind, the repowering costs to get a solar+storage facility to a 40 to 80-year lifetime would likely be offset by the fact that the solar facility will enter service at least eight years earlier than the equivalent nuclear site. Additionally, during the solar plant’s operating lifetime, it saves massive amounts of regular operations and maintenance costs,
as well as specialist engineer labor costs. The nuclear facility will easily last 40 years, and potentially as long as 80. However, the ongoing operations and maintenance costs are significant, as well as upgrades and equipment replacements that start to become necessary after 40 years. And sometimes, those $1 billion dollar upgrades go wrong, and a nuclear power plant gets trashed.
When we do repower the batteries and solar panels, they almost certainly will be cheaper, and operate at a higher efficiency, likely stretching the life of the solar facility to 50+ years. Again, this solar+storage facility would generate 20% more juice in the summer (when the power is needed most in Georgia) because we oversized it for the winter.
In the end, it would be best if we had a healthy ecosystem of clean energy generation systems that include nuclear [but nuclear is not clean]. However, if we’re going to debate the costs of nukes vs. solar, then it is no longer a discussion.
US Renewables Generated More Power Than Coal Or Nuclear In 2020 For First Time
US Renewables Generated More Power Than Coal Or Nuclear In 2020 For First Time, IFL SCience, Jack Dunhill, 3 Aug 21, Renewables produced more power than coal or nuclear power in the USA last year for the first time in history, according to a new report by the Energy Information Administration. With surges in wind, solar and hydroelectric power, the renewable industry produced 21 percent of all electricity generation in the US last year, a massive increase over the previous decade.
Over the past year, the US has seen record growth in renewable power generation, adding 26 gigawatts of production capability in 2020 alone, 80 percent more than 2019. Combined with previous infrastructure, it brought the total renewable power production up to 170 gigawatts, which edged out both nuclear and coal by just a few percent (20 percent and 19 percent of total energy production, respectively). ….. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/us-renewables-generated-more-power-than-coal-or-nuclear-in-2020-for-first-time
Australia’s carbon emissions down 20% due to wide take-up of renewable energy
Telegraph UK, 29th July 2021, For Australia’s part, our experience with technology-orientated pathways
gives us confidence that with the right investments and partnerships, a prosperous net-zero world is well within our reach.
On the ground, our real-world rollout of renewables has made clear to Australian firms and families the immense benefits of investing in clean technology. Because of their embrace of our new energy future, Australia’s emissions are down over 20 per cent on 2005 levels and green technology continues to be taken
up at record levels right across our nation.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/29/technology-key-free-prosperous-net-zero-world/
Renewables overtook coal and nuclear power generation in the U.S last year .
RENEWABLES OVERTOOK COAL AND NUCLEAR POWER GENERATION IN THE US LAST YEAR by,VICTOR TANGERMANN, 30 July 21,
CLEARER SKIES AHEAD. For the first time in US history, renewables became the second-most prevalent electricity source in 2020 after natural gas, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).
In 2020, renewable energy sources —including wind, solar, hydroelectric, and geothermal — accounted for 21 percent of all the electricity generated in the country. Coal represented just 19 percent, while nuclear power accounted for 20 percent.,,,,,,,,, https://futurism.com/the-byte/renewables-overtook-coal-and-nuclear-power-generation-us
Japanese govt’s new Basic Energy Plan will prioritise renewable energy
The industry ministry July 21 laid out its vision for a cleaner energy future in its draft new Basic Energy Plan. The blueprint gives a breakdown of energy sources to power the nation in fiscal 2030 to achieve the
government’s goal of carbon neutrality, or net-zero carbon dioxide emissions, in 2050. It states that promoting renewable energy sources should be the policy priority and set a target of raising the share of
renewables in the nation’s overall power output by 14 points to 36-38 percent in fiscal 2030.
The ministry deserves to be lauded for declaring that renewables should a primary energy source. But its decision to maintain the share of nuclear power at the current level of 20-22 percent is baffling.
Asahi Shimbun 24th July 2021
Greenpeace Rainbow Warrier aims to help workers to transition to renewable energy work
The Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior III ship is in Aberdeen Harbour as part of its Just Transition Tour. The campaign calls on government to train oil and gas workers for a smooth transition to renewable energy schemes. The 190-ft vessel will moor overnight in Aberdeen before heading for Wick with sights set on the 84-turbine Beatrice offshore windfarm sitting lying nine miles off the Caithness coast. The intrepid crew are keen to assess “the challenges and opportunities” facing the platforms’ workers.
Greenpeace UK’s oil campaign leader Mel Evans, head said offshore workers had their full support. He added: They have powered our economy through difficult times and they have plenty of transferable skills which will be vital to our transition to renewable energy. “Politicians must sit down with offshore workers and take urgent action to make the funds, retraining opportunities and jobs available to make Scotland’s clean energy transition a success.”
Evening Express 18th July 2021
UK government’s pointless pursuit ofnuclear power, as renewable energy proving to be cheaper and faster.
Renewable energy, mainly wind and solar, is rising on the back of rapidly falling costs. So much so that the International Energy Agency, which has in the past been rather guarded about their potential, has switched over to seeing them as the main way ahead, supplying 90% of global electric power by 2050.
| Dave Elliott: No room for nuclear. As noted in an article in Regional Life, a local conservation e-magazine linked to a local anti nuclear group, the flat landscape of the Dengie peninsula in Essex is punctuated by a line of tall wind turbines, slowly turning and the massive grey-blue hulk of the former Bradwell ‘A’ nuclear power station. These two features it says graphically express the contrast between rise of renewable energy and the demise of nuclear power, the past and the future of electricity generation. Renewable energy, mainly wind and solar, is rising on the back of rapidly falling costs. So much so that the International Energy Agency, which has in the past been rather guarded about their potential, has switched over to seeing them as the main way ahead, supplying 90% of global electric power by 2050. That is actually quite conservative compared to some projections for the UK: renewables are supplying over 43% of UK power at present and the Renewable Energy Association says that reaching 100% is possible by 2032 – indeed Scotland is already almost there. All of which raises thequestion of why we are still pursuing nuclear power- which just about everyone agrees is very much more expensive than wind and solar. The recent BBC TV documentary series on construction work at Hinkley Point C in Somerset made stunningly clear the massive scale and environmental footprint of nuclear projects like this. Especially notable was the vast amount of concrete that had to be poured- the production of which involves significant release of carbon dioxide gas. That is one reason why nuclear plants are not zero carbon options, another being the fact that mining and processing uranium fuel are energy and carbon intensive activities. By contrast, renewable energy systems like solar cells and wind turbines need no fuel to run, and, although energy is needed to make the materials used in their construction, the net carbon/energy lifetime debt is less than for nuclear- one study suggested nuclear produces on average 23 times more emissions than onshore wind per unit electricity generated. The Government’s stated aim is to generate ‘enough electricity from offshore wind to power every home by 2030’. That means many more offshore wind farms, off the East coast and also elsewhere around the UK. With the other renewables also added in and more of them planned (we have 14 GW of solar capacity so far) it is hard to see what the nuclear plants are for – the 9 GW or so of old plants and the new 3.2 GW Hinkley Point C plant, much less any other proposed new ones. The nuclear lobby sometimes argues we need more nuclear to replace nuclear plants that are being closed and also to back up renewables. It is hard to see how that could work, unless the new plants were flexible, and able to compensate for the variable output of the 30GW or so of wind and solar capacity we have at present. As yet there are no plans to run the Hinkley Point C plant that way, or for that matter, the proposed 3.2 GW Sizewell C. In which case, adding more nuclear will mean that, at times of low demand, some cheap renewable output, or some low cost flexible gas plant output, would have to be curtailed. What a waste! All of this to keep the £22bn Hinkley Point, and any that follow, financially viable. Renew Extra 17th July 2021 https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2021/07/no-room-for-nuclear.html |
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